WINDHOEK – Namibia will, for the third time, host the Confederation of School Sport Associations of Southern Africa (COSSASA) Ball Games from August 30 to September 1.

The event is hosted through the Namibia School Sport Union (NSSU) and is expected to bring together for the first time an historic 1 000 student athletes and officials.

This year’s edition of the games will be the debut staging of cricket as one of the participating sports codes, although it will only be for the boys and girls U-13 category from Botswana and Namibia.

Other unisex sporting codes include basketball (U-17 only), football (U-13 and 17) and volleyball (U-13 and 17). Netball will complete the fixture list as girls representing the U-13 and U-17 categories will compete for medals. Moreover, this time around South Africa who have dominated the past two editions of the competition, will not attend the games due to the dismantlement of the United School Sports Association of South Africa (USSASA) and Namibia will therefore have a chance to capitalise on their absence.

“Namibia hosted the games in 2008 where four countries participated and we came in second after South Africa. The following year in Swaziland we were third after South Africa and Botswana, but this year, we aim to accumulate enough gold medals to win the event on home soil and to mark our 21st anniversary as an institution,” said the secretary-general of the NSSU Hilbertine Uavangua Mbasuva.

The main highlight of the event could be the NSSU Beauty Pageant to be held at the Unam Khomasdal campus on  August 30.